


Let In The Light

by Natalya



Series: And This Is Who We Are [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Conversations, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, Light Angst, Love, M/M, Post-Black Panther (2018), Post-Civil War (Marvel), Recovery, Wakanda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 21:50:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14387826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natalya/pseuds/Natalya
Summary: Steve and Bucky finally have time to talk post-Civil War and post-Black Panther.  Set in the MCU.  The boys meet up again and work through some of their many tons of baggage.  Wherein Bucky has his shit together and Steve is going to learn.





	Let In The Light

“He won’t be hard to find, Captain.  He knows that you’re coming.”    
  
“Just Steve.”  It was an automatic response, one that came even as he tried to keep his breathing steady, tried to maintain some kind of poker face despite the fact he knew that he’d never had one, that he couldn’t have one if he tried.  Not really. Bucky had always told him that he’d worn his heart on his sleeve and that had always been true, no matter how he’d tried to deny it, again and again. 

 

Shuri laughs, dark eyes glinting as she looks up at him while they walk through the corridors out towards the grounds, towards the outside world once again.  “Just Steve it is then. I do not think they were lying when they said you were so alike.” 

 

“And he?”  It’s impossible for him to focus really, knowing that Bucky is there, alive, awake, that he’s on the road to recovery, that he’s been invited there, to Wakanda once again to see him.   

 

Another laugh from Shuri and an eye roll that Natasha would have been proud of and he feels just a miniscule amount of tension leave him, something that he’s grateful for because he’s been wound so tight, has been on a knife edge, frayed at the edges to the point where he can’t figure out how, or when he’s going to unravel but it seems always to be closer, ever closer.  “He is out there and he wants to see you. He is, better than he was. He is more himself. It is a long road to go but he is on the way. A quiet wolf but one who will learn to speak more again.”    
  
“Wolf?”  

 

“That is what they call him.  The children. White Wolf.” A smile that is equal parts soft and wicked curves her lips and she lightly places her hand on his arm.  “But this is where I leave you. He will be down there, somewhere near the lake.” 

 

“Thank you.  Not just for this.  For…” 

 

“With respect Captain?  Shut up.” An impatient wave and she turns and walks away, all barely contained energy, brimming with ideas and with the next thing to do, with the next problem to solve, the next challenge to present herself with.  

 

That’s when the fear comes back, when the tension begins to build once again until it’s almost choking, until it’s something that he can’t stand, can’t bear, not really.  Not the way that people think that he can, think that he’s so stoic, so put together, so strong despite the fact that he’s screaming out inside, is lost, is so deep within the mire that he’s never sure if he’ll find the way out.  Nobody was ever really able to see that. Nobody knew except Bucky and that was…

 

“You think too much.”  

 

And there it is.  

 

_ That _ beloved voice.  

 

That tone, low and slightly rough, but with a warmth there that wraps around Steve like a worn old blanket, a comfort that he hasn’t sought for decades. 

 

Steve’s feet have been carrying him ever closer to the lake, even as his mind has raced, even as he has just tried to keep control, to stop the anxiety from bubbling to the surface.  He’s ignored, blocked out the sounds of other people, a cacophony in the background, the sound of children laughing and playing, the sounds of life that surround them. He hasn’t paid attention to any of it, too set on the goal, to get down to the lake, to bring himself to that point, to at least get that far.  To go from there to see if he can find Bucky To see whether Bucky does want to see him. 

 

It’s plain to see that Steve’s reached the edge.

 

Bucky doesn’t need to be watching him to know that.  Would be able to sense it, to feel it, to know just as he knows every inch of Steve’s body as he does his own.  He doesn’t need Steve to say anything, doesn’t need him to speak to say what’s on his mind. He’s watched Steve since he and Shuri left the palace, was out walking, finding a little bit of peace in movement, in just exploring as he sometimes does, being lost in something close to meditation.  

 

There is silence hanging between them after Bucky’s words, after Steve’s halted, gaze meeting Bucky’s, a quiet moment there between them, looking at each other, taking each other in.  And Steve can feel his heart beating like a jackhammer, pounding against his ribs, palms damp, breathing something that he knows he needs to do yet it’s almost impossible for his lungs to draw in air.  

 

Because of this man.  

 

Because of the man stood in front of him.  

 

The one that he has loved and lost through different lifetimes, who he has loved and grieved for over and over until he thought that truly he had nothing left to give, until there was nothing left of him but a shell of the man he thought that he ought to be, that everybody else expected him to be.  “Buck…” His voice cracks and he doesn’t care. Doesn’t care because after everything he really is there, and he looks so much better than he had, some of that haunted look gone from his expression, some of the darkness, the shadows chased away, skin tanned, healthy.    
  
“M’here Stevie.” 

 

It’s heartbreaking to look at him.  Makes Bucky feel as though somebody is tearing out his heart once again, seeing Steve so broken, so very broken and defeated, fire gone.  It’s another hit of that realisation of just how much Steve has lost, just how much he too has suffered through everything. It’s something that he saw in him in Bucharest, in those whirlwind days as both their worlds fell apart yet again, as both of them were torn asunder yet again.  

 

Steve draws in a slow breath, closes the distance between them, hesitates for just a moment before Bucky is there, pulling him into a hug, holding him close and tight, breathing syncing as they stand there, Steve’s arms wrapping around Bucky, feeling both their heartbeats, too hard, too fast but so very alive, so real.  “You… you’ve  _ died _ so many times and I’ve..  _ fuck _ but you’re here now…”  And it’s there again, that aching of loss that Bucky can feel in every word, can feel in the way that Steve’s arms are tight around him, the way that Steve’s breathing is uneven, bringing back memories of nights when he wasn’t sure if Steve would make it through.     

 

“I’m’not going anywhere.  Not again. They’ve...Shuri’s done it.  They can’t control my mind, it’s gone. What they’d done.  It’s… it’s gone.” Just saying the words is something that feels incredible still, something that is almost unbelievable and yet there it is, it’s the truth, a fact that is undeniable, something that they can both depend on, something that he has and will continue to build on.  

 

Steve swallows hard, just breathing in the scent of Bucky’s skin, feeling his warmth, the overwhelming realness of him, the very  _ life _ that is there that he didn’t know if he’d ever feel again.  “It’s been…” 

 

“I know.”  There’s a shake in Bucky’s voice as he speaks, and he can feel the heat of tears pricking at the back of his eyes, can feel the dampness of Steve’s tears against his shoulder through the cloth of his shirt.  There’s no shame in it. There will never be any shame in it because he knows that both of them are broken, both of them have been taken apart in ways that are hard to quantify, hard to describe, that they both need to heal and need to find some kind of level, some kind of peace.  “I know…” His words hold a fierce undertone, one that teeters on the edge of defiant. That they are there. That he knows what Steve has been through that despite it all they are  _ there _ and nothing can take that away.  

 

Slowly Steve moves back, swallowing again as he tries to compose himself, lets out a shaky breath and just  _ looks _ at Bucky, really _ looks _ at him, and sees him there and then.  Not as who he was before the war, not as he was during, or after in DC.  Not even as he was just six months before, the days that destroyed so much, but what he is like in the here and now, what he is like as they move apart, a little, just a little.  He’s changed. Again. Except they both have. Because nothing is static and everything is fluid and it always has been, and Steve knows that. He knows that in every beat of his heart, and every beat of Bucky’s.  He looks good though. Hair longer once again, tied back in a messy bun, skin tanned, eyes still holding shadows but with a lightness there that had been missing. He’s still missing his arm, but looks healthy in a way that he hadn’t since before the first war they’d been in together and Steve just stores that image in his memory along with so many others to keep safe, to keep there no matter what.  “Is there somewhere that we can go?” 

 

Bucky nods, glancing out across the lake.  “There is. Have some time. Without…” He breaks off as one of the kids darts out from behind him laughing and he chuckles, a low sound that sends an aching warmth deep into Steve’s chest.  “Without being disturbed.” 

 

They walk in silence.  Not an uncomfortable one, but one that stretches and wraps around them both as they give themselves time to adjust, to come into the moment with each other and begin to get their thoughts in order before they begin to catch up, to come back together.

 

It doesn’t take long, maybe ten minutes of walking along the shore of the lake beneath the sun until Bucky gestures to a small jetty with a wooden roof for some form of shade and relief from the sun and they move towards it, sit on the edge, feet dangling towards the clear waters below.  

 

There’s something about it.  Something about the sound of the waves lapping against the sands, about the way that the sunlight sparkles over the crystalline water that seems almost unreal, so painfully beautiful that Steve can’t quite believe that it’s real, and yet.  And yet it  _ is. _

 

Bucky looks at Steve seriously, takes him in; too pale, dark circles under his eyes, far too haunted, tension across his broad shoulders, in every line of his body, tension that has been there for too long, something that he simply  _ knows _ just by knowing Steve, by knowing the man that he has always been beneath it all.  

 

Steve draws in a deep breath, looking at Bucky sitting next to him.  “Where do we start?” 

 

“Where do you want to start?  Shuri, she’s kept tabs on you.  I know everything that’s happened, with the others, with you, the rest of the team.  She caught me up on everything that has passed since we last saw each other.” He pauses, considering his words, looking back out across the lake again for a few moments before looking back at Steve again and he’s like, “Maybe you tell me how you are?”  

 

And it’s never been difficult to talk to each other.  Not over the years. But now Steve finds his mouth dry, not knowing where to start, looking out over the lake.  “I don’t know.” There’s a raw and brutal honesty to his words when he does speak, screwing up his courage to bare everything.  “I don’t know, Buck. I’ve been...you know I didn’t mean to do it…” 

 

“What?”  Bucky’s reply is a gentle push, slowly drawing Steve out, trying to parse out where he’s going from the meagre words.  

 

“Sharon.”  Steve stops, biting his lip as he says the name, not sure why he’s brought her up, why he’s brought that to the fore, why that means any more than anything else.  Except that is just denying it to himself. One more denial in a long line of them that have built up and up like walls around him, trapping him drowning in a poisoned mire inside.  

 

Bucky frowns, thinking back, remembering that moment, remembering the way that it had felt like a blow to the chest, like his heart was being ripped out yet again, despite the fact that he knew that Steve wasn’t his to claim, not anymore, that it wasn’t his place to feel that jealousy, and yet he had.  It had burned in his throat and down through his veins. “Why?” 

 

“I thought that was what she wanted.”  The dull tone in Steve’s voice, as though all the light and life has finally gone makes Bucky freeze, makes him ache, makes him want to tear down the world that hurt Steve so far, so much and so deeply.  “I thought that it was what she wanted and that… I didn’t want it Buck, I swear that it wasn’t…” 

 

“Steve even if it was, you know that it’s…”  

 

“It’s not okay.”  Steve cuts him off, blunt, harsh, a tone that Bucky hadn’t expected, not then, not that way, but then Steve he knows is just raw emotion, exposed and vulnerable.  “It wasn’t okay then and it’s not okay now. I never… she wasn’t… I never stopped loving you and that was…” 

 

“I know.”  

 

“But you… I saw your face Buck.  That smile that was…” 

 

“I didn’t say it didn’t  _ hurt _ Steve.  I said that I know.  I  _ know _ you.  We’ve both changed but I know you.  I know when you mean a kiss and when you don’t.  I know the way that you hold yourself, the way that you move and you breathe.  There are some things that don’t change, and there are some things that they could never take away from me because they’re burned into my goddamn soul.”  And it’s more than he meant to reveal, more than he meant to say, more than he wants to pile on Steve at that moment but he needs to stop that self-flagellation, needs to let Steve know that it hurt and it was like acid eating at him but he knew that it wasn’t what it seemed.  That he doesn’t, won’t ever hold it against him. 

 

There’s a soft sound from Steve, a shaken breath drawn in slow, let out in an uneven rush, muffled as he rubs his hands over his face.  It’s more than he had thought, more than he could have hoped that he still somehow held that heart, somehow still was part of Bucky just as Bucky was part of him, just as they had been for so long.  He swallows hard, throat aching, chest hurting with the sheer emotion of it all, the walls beginning to come down, terrifying, the thought that it will all flood out, that he might drown as it does. “I…”  

 

“It’s okay.”  

 

Steve looks at him, drawing in another slow breath, trying to get a read on Bucky, trying to see what’s going on behind his expression, trying to read his body language, knowing even as he does that Bucky was always better at poker than he had ever been, had always been better at hiding his emotions, disguising things as protection either for himself, for Steve or for both.  “Is it?” 

 

Bucky nods, a weary half-smile just tugging at the corners of his lips.  “That is. But you? Me? Neither of us is okay, not really. It’s not something that comes immediately though.” 

 

“But we will be?”  

 

Bucky nods, hearing that desperate hope there, that need, that desperation that maybe somehow, one day they will be okay and it won’t just be a constant attempt to keep  head above water, to stop from drowning, to just keep going because that’s what you  _ do. _  “We will.”  

 

“Thank you.”  And it’s small and broken but it’s something.  It’s a tacit agreement that they can and they will get there, it’s an acknowledgement of trust, of the way that even now Steve will trust him, will trust in what he says which of itself is something that almost takes Bucky’s breath away.  

 

Bucky nods, falling silent again, letting it stretch, staring out across the water before he looks back at Steve once again.  “You know, I do too. Still love you that is. Never willingly stopped. They took you from me but...afterwards, when I remembered, when I  _ knew _ , then it hadn’t changed. It was still you.  Always has been you.” There’s nothing more than truth in his words, in the tone of his voice, in the  _ way _ that he says it.  

 

Steve can feel it there between them, heavy in the air, that weight of years and of love and loss and it’s a tangible thing, it’s something that he so desperately wants to grasp and to hold, wants to cling to as a drowning man would cling to a spar of wood, his last hope.  And yet he doesn’t feel that he should, doesn’t feel that he deserves it, doesn’t deserve to be saved from drowning when he failed so much so long ago, when he failed Bucky, couldn’t save him. He doesn’t deserve that lifeline and it cuts deep, but it’s only one more wound over an already deeply scarred heart that barely keeps beating beneath the damage done.  

 

And there it is.  That painful guilt and soul-deep sorrow in Steve’s expression, the shadows in his eyes that Bucky  _ knows _ should not be there, knows shouldn’t be there on  _ his _ Steve, that the guilt and the loss and the pain are all things that if he  _ could _ erase then he would.  But he can’t and it’s something that all he can do is try to soothe, to slowly heal as he heals himself.  

 

As they both do.  

 

“You…”  

 

“You don’t have to say anything.” Bucky hitches one shoulder in a slight shrug, the sensation of being slightly off-balance one that he’s getting more used to, something that he barely notices anymore, not the way that he did at first.  

 

Steve shakes his head, needing a moment to just let himself breathe, to parse through the emotions that the serum amplified, something that he knows Bucky must have experienced too, and that is something that even with the time he’s had he still hasn’t been able to come to terms with.  “I know I don’t have to. But thing is, I want to. Fuck, I didn’t think...I didn’t think we were...that you were gonna make it out of that place. I thought...Jesus Buck, I thought for a second that you…” 

 

“But I didn’t.”  Bucky reaches out to take Steve’s hand, more instinct than intention, something to get some kind of physical contact between them, something, anything to keep Steve anchored there in the moment, to stop him slipping away back to Siberia, back to those moments.  

 

Steve bites his lip, looking down at their intertwined hands, and he shakes his head, raises his gaze to meet Bucky’s.  “I could have killed him. I would have.” And it’s an admission of guilt, of horror, of something that has plagued him with doubt. 

 

“You wouldn’t.”  

 

The absolute certainty in Bucky’s voice is like a wave of absolution washing over him, the taste of the wafer and red wine over his tongue, dust motes dancing in the light of stained glass.  It’s balm to his bruised and battered soul that he hadn’t looked for or expected, but that he had received. “How do you  _ know _ ?”  

 

“Steve.”  

 

“I could have.” Yet still that doubt there, still that weight that sits on his heart.  “I could have killed him, I would have, if he had killed you. I don’t know if I could have...Could I have stopped myself? I wasn’t…”  

 

“Stop.”  Bucky’s voice is hard, slightly sharp, something that makes Steve stop, makes him look up from his hands, makes him look at Bucky instead.  “I know. I know because I know you. Not Captain America. I know  _ you _ .  Who you are at the very  _ heart _ of yourself.  I know that you wouldn’t have done that.  Fuck you would have wanted to. Christ knows I would have wanted to if the situation was reversed.  But Steve, I’ve known you since we were small. I’ve loved you since...Since I knew what it was to love.  And I know  _ you _ , the man that you  _ are  _ and that you always have been.  You wouldn’t have done it. You would have done exactly what you did.  You would have stopped him. And if I was gone.  _ If _ .  You would have taken my body out of there and taken me  _ home. _ ”   

 

A choked sound escapes Steve, one that Bucky feels as much as he hears, feels it like a punch to the chest, like someone reaching in and squeezing his heart.  

 

“But you’re here.”  Words a prayer and a hope as much as statement, something broken and fragile that still somehow holds more weight than Steve thinks that he can bear.  That Bucky is alive, and he’s there, and somehow after everything, after all the hell that they have both been through, different, but hell all the same, that they are there together once again. “You’re here”  And it’s almost wondering, a moment of being awed and feeling some kind of vindication of faith that he thought that he had lost. 

 

Bucky squeezes his hand for a moment before taking his own back and he stands up holding out his hand to Steve, pulling him to his feet.  “Walk and talk.” 

 

It’s not easy.  

 

None of it is.  They walk around the outer limits of the lake, pace slow and deliberate.  They speak, they pause, there are long silences that stretch taut and snap back once again bringing them back to the here and now.  It’s by turns sweet and painful, bitter and comforting. It’s cathartic beyond anything, a coming together and a finding of solid ground.  Ground more solid than either of them have felt in a long time. In decades. In the best part of a century. 

 

Night is falling before they go back to the palace. The sun is finally sinking below the horizon, the air still sweet with the scent of blossoms, the sounds of voices and people weaving in between the buildings as they near civilisation once again.  Then Bucky pauses as they reach the side entrance that Steve had used earlier with Shuri, pauses and looks at Steve for a moment, feeling a frisson of uncertainty run through him. “I have rooms here, I’ve been sleeping out a lot, but…” 

 

“Yes.”  Steve doesn’t let him finish, knows what he’s going to ask. “ _ Please. _ ”  

 

\--------------

 

It’s dark when they go in, lights automatically coming on.  None of that matters. 

 

The door is barely shut before Bucky turns to Steve, reaching his hand round the back of Steve’s head, drawing him into a kiss, one that’s in turns fierce and desperate.  He feels Steve’s hands on his waist, pulling him still closer, Steve’s desperation matching his own and he already knows that there are going to be bruises in the shape of Steve’s fingertips, a badge to be worn with pride. 

 

They break apart slowly, lips reddened, eyes over-bright and neither wants to be parted, no further than they are from each other at that moment.  It’s Bucky who breaks the silence. “Punk. Jesus punk I have  _ missed _ you.  Missed  _ this. _ ”  

 

There’s no reply but Steve’s lips on his once again, and a strangled sob from Steve that tears Bucky’s heart wide open, the way that Steve is shaking against him, the way that he is trying so desperately to hold himself together but can’t. Not really.  Not to someone who knows him, who knows him heart and soul and  _ damn it _ but he knows how much Steve has suffered, is suffering, has never had a moment has never had that  _ time _ that space to do anything about it.  

 

And it is good.  It is coming  _ home. _ It’s so much that has been missing, so much that had been lost and it’s reclamation, it’s something that neither of them had dared to hope, to think could happen again.   

 

“Buck…”     
  
“I’m here.”  The words are automatic, a reassurance, ready on the tip of his tongue when he hears Steve’s voice so pleading, wavering on the edge of breaking altogether.   

 

Steve nods, swallowing hard, letting his gaze meet Bucky’s, looking into his storm grey eyes, seeing the warmth there, the way that Bucky’s gaze doesn’t waver for a moment, seems to look through him, through the walls that he’s put up, through everything until he’s stripped bare, raw and vulnerable.  

 

Bucky tilts his head slightly as he really looks at Steve again, sees him with all his guards down, with nothing there save the barest, the  _ deepest _ part of himself.  And what he sees is enough to make him shatter himself, enough to make him feel emotion thick in his throat, to feel an ache deep in his chest, feel his heart being tugged and pulled beneath his ribs.  “Jesus...Steve. How long? How long has it been? When did you become so  _ broken _ ?”  

 

There’s no accusation in the words.  No harsh note, nothing save understanding, concern, a warm undercurrent of love in  _ that _ beloved voice,  _ that _ voice that he can feel through him, down to his bones, through to his very soul.  The touch of Bucky’s hand gently cupping his face, the pad of his thumb smoothing across his cheek makes Steve realise that tears have fallen, only to be caught, to be wiped away by the man in front of him, the man he loves and always has.  And it’s not a question he even has the answer to, not a question that he can answer, not straight away. 

 

It takes a few seconds before he can control his voice, before he can find some vestige of control.  “I don’t know. I think...it’s been coming on since… since Erskine, since then…” 

 

It’s an admission.  

 

An admission of something that he’s tried to deny for so long, has tried to hide, has tried to just bury beneath yet another layer of denial.  It’s something that he’s tried to keep to himself, that he’s tried to be nothing but who he needs to be, that he’s just accepted blow after blow from the world, buried the hurt deep until nobody else could see that he was bleeding, hemorrhaging beneath the surface, wound after wound barely closing before the next is inflicted.  

 

He hears Bucky’s sharp intake of breath, can’t bring himself to look him in the face, keeps his own eyes on the ground, looking away.  

 

Bucky watches as Steve seems to almost shrink further into himself, the way that he seems so much smaller than he ever has, in this life or the one before, the one so long ago now that still seems as though it was only a few years ago, not nearly a century.  But then time stopped meaning the same for them as it does for others a long time ago. “Let’s go inside properly. Close out the world.”

 

Steve doesn’t reply, because there aren’t any words that he can form to even begin to say how much he wants to do that, to just close the world out, to make everything just  _ stop _ because since getting there to Wakanda, since being able to step away from the world, just for a moment, it’s been closing in on him more and more, has been making it harder and harder to breathe with the thought that he has to go back, has to go back out there and keep acting as though he isn’t drowning when his lungs have been filled with water since he woke up from the ice.  

 

He follows Bucky through into the inner room, barely focusing on what he’s doing, just following, watching Bucky, watching the way that he moves, so silent and smooth, the set of his shoulders, the flex and movement of muscle beneath the soft material of his shirt.  And it’s only when the door clicks closed behind them that he forces himself to pay attention to his surroundings, the room simple, plain, just a bed, a chair, and a huge window letting the night through, the last rays of the setting sun spreading soft warm fingers across the scene.  

 

“You still with me Stevie?”  

 

It’s enough to break him there and then, that name, that name said in  _ that _ voice, something that he didn’t think that he would ever hear again, something that he didn’t believe he ever  _ deserved _ to hear again.  Except with Bucky it’s never been about the deserving of anything.  It’s only ever been about the love, the two hearts that are theirs, battered, bruised and aching now, but only ever about that, two hearts, two souls, and  _ damned _ if he’s ever been able to get Bucky to think any different.  

 

He pulls himself together enough to answer, swallowing hard before he does.  “Yeah, yeah I’m still here.” 

 

Bucky frowns as he looks at him and it’s almost impossible to know what to do, where to even start, not when the depth of suffering is so apparent, when it’s the kind of hurt that he knows is there, that he understands, when he is still healing himself and finding his own way.  “Shoes off, sit down.” It’s simple instruction, but it’s enough. Enough to make Steve mimic what he’s doing, the two of them sitting on the edge of the bed, bathed in the last vestiges of light that are coming through the window. 

 

“I’m sorry.”  It’s not enough.  Those words will never be enough and Steve knows it, knows that no matter what he says, no matter what syllables he utters it is never going to be  _ enough _ .  And he looks at Bucky, sitting next to him, looks at the way that the light plays across his skin, tanned and healthy, the way that there is a small crease between his brows, a frown that Steve longs to smooth away as he would have before.   

 

“You don’t have a damn thing to be sorry for,”  Bucky meets Steve’s gaze directly, taking him in, “not one damn thing.”  He knows that as he says it it is true, that there is nothing that Steve needs to apologise for, not to  _ him _ , that maybe instead Steve needs to apologise to himself, for the impossible standards he’s held himself to, for the weight of the guilt that still crushes him, for the lack of forgiveness he has for himself, for the fact that he is, that he is so beautifully  _ human _ and for that Bucky loves him with everything that he has, everything that he  _ is _ .  

 

Steve shakes his head, silent denial.  “You know that I  _ do _ ,” his fingers pluck at the duvet, a nervous habit that Bucky hasn’t seen in years, “I do.  Fuck, I let you  _ fall _ Buck.  I wasn’t enough, never fucking enough to keep you, to… I was given this body to make a difference but what good was it when I couldn’t even keep the one person I truly  _ loved _ , that I  _ love _ safe?  What good was…”  He spreads his hands, looking down at the broad palms, that were still not good enough, still not  _ enough _ .  

 

“ _ Jesus, _ ” Bucky breathes, the word barely above a whisper as he shakes his head, reaching out to cover one of Steve’s hands with his own, palm to palm, warm skin against skin,  _ “Jesus, Stevie _ .  That was never,  _ never _ , on you.  _ Never _ .”  

 

There’s a tension in the air between them, something that cannot be held back, something drawn so tight it’s almost thrumming, ready to snap, ready to break, that calm before the storm where there’s the scent of ozone in the air and clouds gathering heavy with rain.  It grows for a few moments before Steve begins to shake and Bucky just pulls him in close, doesn’t say a word because in those moments there’s nothing that needs to be said, there is nothing in those moments save the two of them and all that they were, that they are. 

 

“It’s okay, you don’t gotta be anything other than yourself here.  Same as me. Lesson I’ve been learning. You don’t gotta hide anything here.  It’s gonna be okay, m’not going anywhere unless you ask me to.” There’s a quiet, steady confidence in Bucky’s words, in his voice, in the reassurance that he gives. “You know that I love you Stevie.  There’s nothin’, nothin’ you can say that’s gonna change that.” 

 

Steve draws in a slow breath, feels the words wrap around him, warm and safe, something that allows him to breathe for the first time in what feels like years, to really breathe without feeling as though somewhere, somehow, he is going to start suffocating once again.  “You... _ How? _ How are you doing this?  How are you so…” 

 

“Because I’ve had time.  I’ve had time here and with the right people.  I’m not together, not completely. But I’ve had the time, and the space to start building myself once again, to start to learn what is is to be  _ me _ again. Nothing more, nothing less.  And it ain’t easy, but it’s worth it.”  Something that was a hard lesson to learn, something that was so fucking  _ hard _ that he had thought that he might well never succeed, but he’s found the light at the end of the tunnel, found that peace, that feeling of being  _ alive _ once again, not simply surviving.  And damned if he won’t give Steve that same chance, that same precious gift that he’s been given because of anyone in the world, Steve deserves it,  _ needs _ it, has suffered too much to go without anymore.  

 

It’s silent again between them, not uncomfortable, just a spread of gentle silence as Steve allows Bucky’s words to wash over him, allows himself to feel that flicker of hope once again, something small and weak, but something that he has a burning desire to protect, a hope that he wants to allow himself that maybe, just  _ maybe _ he will make it out the other side, that the two of them can have that together, can finally have the sort of life that they once wanted, one where they do not have to hide who or what they are.  “I don’t care how hard it is.” Steve’s voice is soft, low, as he speaks. “I don’t care how long it takes, or how hard it is. I want this.” 

 

And it takes him a lot to admit that. 

 

That he not only is that far gone, that broken.  But that he wants to take the time to work on  _ himself _ to do something that in his mind is selfish, something that is for what he wants, that is for nobody else, that is for no other purpose than for  _ himself _ and for getting to what he wants.  It feels almost liberating, feels as though some great weight has lifted from his shoulders.  

 

Bucky can’t help the smile that curves his lips at that, can’t help the feeling of relief that washes through him as he sees the determination in Steve’s expression, that almost mulish obstinacy that he both loves and has exasperated him over the years, leans in to kiss him, laughs as Steve kisses him back, hard until neither of them can really breathe properly.  Slowly, slowly they draw apart and both can feel their hearts pounding, blood singing in their veins, that sensation again of being  _ home _ at long last.  “Then we do this,  _ together. _ ”  

 

And damned if that isn’t the nicest word, one loaded with weight, with meaning, with comfort and nothing but overwhelming  _ rightness. _

 

_ Together.  _

  
  



End file.
